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‘Oh, I think I know who they both are. One is Toby’s mother. Well, the woman who adopted him. But she’s in a care home with early onset dementia. The other one refuses to tell me. He said,let sleeping dogs lie.’ Abigail looked over her shoulder through the window at the lighthouse.
Carys followed her gaze. ‘Albert, the old guy living in the
‘That makes sense,’ Oliver mused. ‘He’s been living here for years. They must have been friends …’
Abigail sighed. ‘More than friends.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carys asked.
Abigail got out of her seat, leaving Ulysses to look for some attention elsewhere.
‘Hey, boy,’ said Oliver. ‘I didn’t know you had a dog,’ he said to Abigail. Ulysses made a bee-line for Oliver, getting a big fuss in return. ‘Aren’t you a good boy!’
Abigail started rummaging in the box of home movie reels. She glanced at Ulysses, his head on Oliver’s lap. ‘I’ll tell you one day about the dog and his previous owner.’
Oliver looked up. ‘So, you’re staying here for good now?’
‘Yes,’ Abigail said without hesitating, surprising herself that she didn’t even have to give it a second thought.
‘Will you come back to Somerville Hall?’ Carys was quick to ask. ‘You have to. The place hasn’t been the same without you. That’s right, isn’t it, Oliver?’ She glanced at him. ‘He hasn’t filled your position. Refuses to, even though I’m sure the accounts are getting in a right mess.’
Abigail stared at him.
‘My sister is right.’
‘About which part?’ Carys asked, chiding him.
‘All the aforementioned.’
‘So, will you, Abigail?’ Carys looked at her keenly. ‘Come back, I mean?’
Abigail dropped her eyes from their gaze. She couldn’t go back, not unless she told them that in six or seven months’ time she would need to take maternity leave, and they’d have to hire someone else anyway. She didn’t want to mention her pregnancy just yet, but Abigail felt it unfair to accept the position without telling them that her circumstances had changed.
Oliver frowned at her sister. ‘You can’t put her on the spot like that. She’s only just returned. Besides, I heard she might be doing other accounts in the town, for the small group of shops in Cobblers Yard?’
Abigail stared at them, wondering where on earth they’d heard that.
‘Lili tells me they’ve asked for you to do theirs too. She’s put in a good word.’
Abigail frowned. That explained it. Typical Lili, assuming this time she would be staying. Although she wasn’t actually wrong.
‘Or maybe she has other plans,’ Oliver added.
Yeah – like having a baby,thought Abigail, feeling her face flush bright red. She knew she had to tell them, tell Oliver. But right now there was something else she wanted to tell them, or more to the point – show them. She put her hand on one of Daphne’s other home movie reels. ‘Let’s watch another home movie.’
It didn’t matter which one she played. They’d all been filmed here at the cottage, and all by Daphne’s lover, Albert, the man her father, the previous Lord Somerville, had refused to allow her to marry.
Abigail threaded the reel and switched on the projector. She joined them on the sofa.
‘She looks so different to the aunt I remember,’ observed Carys.
Abigail thought how being in love would do that. But it wasn’t just her happy disposition, so different to how she appeared, albeit briefly, on the birthday movie reel; it was her attire too. Gone was the tweed skirt, white shirt and stuffy tweed jacket she had worn on the day of the party – here, she wore a long, flowing white dress. Her black tresses flowed freely down her back.
She expected this wasn’t the Daphne they had got used to seeing when they went to visit. Her lover, Albert, must have hidden away in his lighthouse, and the two of them were doubtless never seen together when her niece and nephew visited. Abigail guessed they had no clue what she was about to tell them.
She recounted the story she’d heard from The Gossip Girls; the story of a young man and woman from very different backgrounds who were in love, but who were never destined to be together – not officially, anyway. She told them their aunt had married a man her father approved of. At some point, after inheriting some money, she had bought the cottage to live in while her husband was working overseas as an army colonel and had resumed her relationship with the man she really loved – Albert. Of course, it was all conjecture. She told them that too.
‘Ooh, a family secret,’ Carys clapped her hands, drinking in what Abigail was telling them about their late aunt. ‘Shewasa dark horse. All I remember is an uptight woman who always seemed to dress and act older than her years. But then she did marry a man who was at least a decade older than her.’
